I just finished reading this Huffington Post story that contains the complete 21 page superseding indictment handed down by a grand jury against a group of Oath Keepers. It is worth taking the time to read. The indictment details the planning in the weeks leading to January 6 by a group of individuals, some with military training, who went to the Capitol in response to the call by Trump, clearly intending to stop the certification of the electoral college vote.
I was struck by two things in the indictment that are, in a way, contradictory to one another. First was the care, precision, and forethought with which this group planned to stop the government proceedings – all very professional, military, and carefully arranged. The second was my very powerful sense that this was a bunch of people playing at being soldiers. I would be curious to know what the readers of this blog think should they take the trouble to read the entire indictment.
The other thing that occurred to me, of course, is that these people made no effort to hide what they were doing and, judging from what I have read since in the media, actually thought that since they were entitled to rebel against the government nobody would do anything to them. It is really quite extraordinary.
If you have nothing better to do, take a look at it and tell me what you think.
40 comments:
I do have other things to do, but the general phenomenon you describe is familiar to me and is, I think, quite common. It's an extreme variant of the same phenomenon that leads certain men to buy guns without actually having a realistic need for them, to (at a lower level) buy huge trucks with loud mufflers, to buy survival kits while they live in suburban two-story homes, etc.
The common thread, from what I can tell, is a form of performative masculinity. It's the old image of the man as power and authority--authority over the household, over the homestead, over himself. That's still the image of masculine identity inculcated in a lot of places, but the world is not so open to it anymore, and not just because of the oh-so-horrible horrors of liberalism. One-income households, for instance, which secured the husband's authority over resources, are gone. Women work, they gain positions of authority, they live independently--these facts are threat to not just power, but identity. Standard masculine images are still certainly present in the media, but they're not omnipresent--there are alternative ways of thinking, whereas before the masculine model was not open to question.
In response, confused and frustrated men seek identity. Playing soldier, buying unnecessarily huge trucks, and so on--these are ways to assert identity. They're both posing (since these men can't and wouldn't, in most circumstances, actually live up to the ideal they're posing as) and taking it deadly serious (as it's a matter of identity). That's a huge part of the appeal of Trump, and helps to explain the huge gender gap as well as Hillary Clinton's treatment relative to Biden's. Basically, the performance of extreme masculinity for a lot of (White) men becomes their identity. I tend to call it political masculinity.
Someone wrote there are characteristics to do with tyrants: gullibility and cynicism. These people seem very gullible. and are manipulated, cynically, by 45.
But, also, and true to their leader, there is a massive element of incompetence. A coup requires a certain amount of planning for what happens after breaching the barricades. Wandering around, taking selfies, does nothing but gather evidence for your trial.
They're lucky they're not in a place where they'd get taken out to be shot.
It seems more like playing at soldier than a well-planned military operation. Wearing camouflaged fatigues, for example: they're meant to help a soldier blend into the environment--desert, jungle etc. They aren't the best way to make yourself invisible in a metropolitan area.
While they play at security to an extent, as the indictment shows they're very visible and can be traced rather easily. That carelessness may come for living in the bubble. They are so used to everyone around them seeing the world as they do that they become careless in communicating.
Kevin Drum, formerly a blogger for Mother Jones and now on his own, argues persuasively that the real culprit in all of this is Fox News--all these people see on TV--and they watch TV regularly--is made-up world of Hannity, Carlson et al. This kind of thing couldn't have happened when the FCC had a fairness doctrine.
Exactly, David. I have long been struck by the absurdity of wearing camouflage gear in the city. The best camouflage in the city is a pair of chinos, or dungarees, an open necked shirt, and an ordinary sweater.
As Derek says above, they probably don't distinguish well between posing and taking it seriously. They (and many of the rest of us) live in a world where everything is posing for a selfie in Facebook or Instagram. They worship a president, Trump, who is an evident fraud, an evident conman. Now if someone is incapable of seeing that Trump is a fraud, their sense of reality is not very developed.
They are or at least were also incapable of understanding that the FBI and the Biden administration would take their posings seriously once they entered the Capitol building forcibly. Since they live in a world of irreality, they probably don't understand that there are people who live in a world of reality or at least are making an effort to be in touch with reality and that those people might take their threat to national security very seriously.
Once again, if you genuinely believe that Trump was a great president and that Biden won the election fraudulently, you're not living in the real world.
We dismiss this as "playing" at our peril. Life is a learning curve and while this may seem like cosplay there are those who likely consider it a dress rehearsal. Even stupid people can get lucky.
Oh yes. I do not dismiss it at all. I was just struck by the seeming contrast. According to the messages among them quoted in the indictment, they chose not to bring weapons because they did not think they could get them into the District of Columbia, not because they did not have deadly intentions. I just hope to God the FBI puts a great many of them behind bars for a very long time.
This is of course just the prosecutor's side of things. But these people seem nuts to me. They are somehow convinced that what they are doing is 100% right AND that somehow almost everyone in the rest of the country already agrees with what they are doing. And they also somehow seem to think this is somehow some sort of social get together like seeing family over the holidays or meeting a group of friends at some convention or something. And most of them aren't kids or in their 20's it's more like 40's and 50' and 60's. I don't know what is wrong with them but they seem to have lost touch with a large part of reality. It is concerning that these people probably own multiple guns and stockpile ammunition. I am glad they didn't start shooting that day- it could have been worse I guess.
What struck me the most was their decision not to bring firearms because they were illegal in D.C. If you're planning to break a bunch of laws already, why not break one more? I wonder if any of them had ever been to D.C. Did they think they would be stopped and frisked when they crossed the border? Did they think the Capitol Police would welcome them as patriots? I find it all very bizarre.
I was struck by the fear expressed in one of the messages about how a Biden presidency would destroy their entire way of life, but not surprised by it; I can well imagine that someone who got their news only from Fox, OANN, and Trump's tweets might think that. Fellow academics sometimes blame postmodernists for creating the post-truth world, but I think that's like blaming the doctor who diagnosed your cancer for causing it.
The most scary thing for me about those folks is their version of reality. I'm reminded of Jamie Raskin and his father: “Democracy needs a ground to stand upon. And that ground is the truth.”
An alleged 30 million Americans now also lend a listen to, "NewsMax",---the latest of right-wing cable "news" outlets, and it easily surpasses FOX in the depravity of its machinations.
Not to pick nits, but the media can really describe most any rally as one attended by trained military personnel. Every rally and protest march you ever attended could truthfully be described as one held by some people trained in military tactics. The media depend on the public's ignorance of the military. Would you describe events you attended this way?
When the "trained military personnel" (and law enforcement, for that matter) behave like organized cadres and engage in violence and insurrection, I'm going to be concerned. Your mileage may vary but a retired O-5 in tactical gear and carrying flexcuffs is concerning.
I wouldn’t put much weight on their dress, or why some didn’t.bring guns. The militia members expected resistance and were wearing bullet proof vests and “tactical gear” so they would have stuck out just as much wearing jeans and button down oxford shirts. They were also more able to identify each other in a crowd. As to some not brining guns, there was a plot to bring guns across the Potomac. Also one group apparently had a “QRF” (quick reaction force) standing by. Also, some people were arrested as soon as they arrived in D.C. (the Cowboys for Trump guy is one example) so having a gun in you car or truck would have you arrested on the spot assuming you were known to the authorities.
Two things have changed in recent years: first, the paranoid, delusional conspiracy elements of the anti- government militias now have broad political currency, and 2) white supremacist militias perceived a threat to their world view from broad support for BLM and a “socialist “ democratic government making these radical ideas of equality real.
Trump’s encouragement and legitimation of white supremacist militias, racism, misogyny, anti LGBT, etc motivated these groups, who had already become more radicalized and active as a result of Obama’s presidency. I agree with Derek’s comments above regarding performative masculinity. Male supremacy, white supremacy, and authoritarianism have an elective affinity for each other..
Out of the pool of militias present in most states, there is motivated group actively engaging in political violence. Perhaps the biggest change is that both segments of militia groups have identified with the Trump version of the Republican Party. On top of that there is a “Christian” militia called Patriot Prayer. They have been active on the west coast. Patriot Prayer participated in coordinated actions with the Proud Boys and III% percenters in Portland against BLM demonstrators which lead to a member being killed. The person suspected of the killing was killed by federal authorities - he wasn’t armed and was shot with no warning. And, on top of that, there are right-wing libertarian (nihilist) groups like the Boogaloo Bois.. These groups tend not to have a specific set of beliefs about issues other than, like the Boogaloo Bois, a clear interest in causing and escalating violence.
Besides active militias, there is a large pool of armed unaffiliated individuals who will respond to calls to support different political actions. Examples of these types in action would include the Rittenhouse kid (who is indicted for murder, posted bond, violated conditions of bail, is being protected by a militia, and the police do not know his whereabouts). and dozens of car ramming attacks, many with involvement by law enforcement officers (active and retired). Many participants in the insurrection seem to fall into this category.
To Dr. Wolff’s question, many of these militia members were soldiers (or cops) and I presume want to maintain a belief that they are still soldiers as it gives their identity some sort of distorted legitimacy. To see oneself as a former soldier and member of the Oath Keepers allows for a consistent identity and allows for the belief that the domestic terrorism one is engaged in is really fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. If we confine ourselves to the major militia groups active in political violence now - the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Light Foot Militia, Three Percenters, Civilian Defense Force, Patriot Prayer, the Bundy Group, there is a demonstrated commitment among their members to engage in political violence. What percent of their members are actively engaged in violence I don’t know.
This description from Bryon York in the Washington Examiner, a conservative publication of small circulation that used to be available free at DC Metro stations, but I haven't seen it anywhere in years. It's apparently available on the web.
"The indictment shows what they were saying to each other on social media in the days and weeks before the riot. Read together, their social media posts suggest people living in a kind of fantasy world in which they could take the Capitol, while carefully obeying Washington, D.C.'s strict gun control laws and carrying no firearms, change the course of U.S. history, and then head home."
Schopenhauer:
"The structure of human society is like a pendulum swinging between two impulses, two evils in polar opposition, despotism and anarchy. The further it gets from the one, the nearer it approaches the other. From this the reader might hit on the thought that if it were exactly midway between the two, it would be right. Far from it. For these two evils are by no means equally bad and dangerous. The former is incomparably less to be feared; its ills exist in the main only as possibilities, and if they come at all it is only one among millions that they touch. But, with anarchy, possibility and actuality are inseparable; its blows fall on every man every day. Therefore every constitution should be a nearer approach to a despotism than to anarchy; nay, it must contain a small possibility of despotism."
@Anonymous,
Pardon my early morning snarkiness re: Schopenhauer.
So the opposite of despotism is anarchy and not freedom? The pendulum swings between two non-opposite and non-equal states of being? What about the non-despotic and non-anarchic political systems. Did he skip the class on Machiavelli and the Florentine Republic, for example?
When it comes to militias Schopenhauer may have something, Militias seem to be almost exclusively authoritarian in political orientation, though there is at least one for the anarchists, the Boogaloo Bois!
@David Palmeter
The indictment paints a different picture regarding weapons than that described by Byron York.
P. 11 of the indictment : “2) he is committed to being the quick reaction force ....that way the boys don’t have to try to schlepp weps on the bus. He’ll bring them in his truck the day before.”
P.12 “You guys Gonna carry?....OK, we aren’t either, we have a heavy QRF 10 Min out though.” “[PERSON THREE] will have the goodies in case things go bad and we need to get heavy.”
P. 13-14. “ We are not bringing firearms. QFR will be our law enforcement members of Oathkeepers.” Response: “Good to know.”
“...weapons are ok now.”
Remember that Schopenhauer, who is my guru when it comes to hating noise and noisiness, lent his opera glasses to Army snipers who were shooting at the protesting crowd during the 1848 Revolution.
The beginning of the downfall of Donald J. Trump has begun today. The Supreme Court has just ordered that Trump’s tax returns can be released to the New York District Attorney. If Monsieur Trump runs for President again, it will be from a jail cell.
Christopher J. Mulvaney,
Although I am certainly not a supporter of despotism, I believe the point that Schopenhauer is making is as follows:
You are correct that one can argue that the opposite of despotism is not anarchy, per se. but total human freedom. But what are the consequences of total human freedom? As Prof. Wolff maintained in his essay In Defense of Anarchism, “The responsible man is not capricious or anarchic, for he does acknowledge himself bound by moral constraints. But he insists that he alone is the judge of those constraints. He may listen to the advice of others, but he makes it his own by determining for himself whether it is good advice.” Anarchism as a political philosophy advocates for the elimination of all government, allowing for total human freedom. But not every human being has the sense of moral responsibility that Prof. Wolff has, something clearly demonstrated by the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol which is the subject of this thread. In a random sample of 100 human beings, from a random sample of 100 different nations, cultures, societies, of those 100 human beings, how many would have a sense of moral responsibility comparable to that of Prof. Wolff? Let us speculate that 90 of those randomly chosen human beings had a moral sense comparable to, if not equivalent to, that of Prof. Wolff (and some might argue that this is a rather high estimate), that leaves 10 human beings who do not have such a moral sense, who have no empathy for their fellow human beings, who like the revered leader of the Capitol insurgents is self-centered, totally amoral, a pathological liar and slanderer devoted to the exploitation of others, how much harm can those 10 human beings do as compared to the 90 virtuous human beings?
A lot. The capacity of evil to wreak havoc among the forces of good in the absence of government is enormous. In all of the literary and cinematic works in which good triumphs over evil - e.g., The Lord of the Rings; War and Peace; From Here to Eternity; The Hunger Games, The Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. – they only triumph in the presence of some form of government, where the forces of good are willing to sublimate their urges for the total freedom for which Prof. Wolff advocates in his essay to organizational self-government, in which they subordinate their urges for complete freedom to some form of governmental control. But then we do not have total human freedom, freedom which answers to no one, that you claim is the opposite of despotism. So, I believe this is Schopenhauer’s point – that anarchy is the opposite of despotism, because anarchy would be the natural evolutionary by-product of total freedom– which eventually results in the triumph of the 10 non-virtuous individuals over the 90 who are virtuous. Only government can prevent this from occurring. Even Plato, in the Republic, opted for a dogmatic state over total freedom. And in every government there is some measure of despotism – the requirement that individuals obey dictates contrary to their own sense of appropriate moral constraint.
Now it is true that despotism as a form of government means government by a single person, or a small cadre of persons, who often act(s) ruthlessly and arbitrarily, but as between the polar opposites of despotism and total freedom which necessarily devolves into anarchy, which would the virtuous person prefer – anarchy, in which they have no security whatsoever, versus despotism, where a least some sector of the population will still be protected by the despot, at the expense of the exploitation of another segment of the society?
Beethoven was so angered by the noise of the Napoleonic siege (and by the siege itself) of Vienna that he revised his opinion of the great man, and scratched out the dedication to him in his "Hero" symphony.
Beethoven had an attachment made for his Broadwood -- a wooden rod which when bitten could conduct sound sufficiently that he might hear something of it.
"If Monsieur Trump runs for President again, it will be from a jail cell."
That'll be his "Landsburg" confinement.
For those who may not know, Landsberg Prison in Bavaria was the prison in which Hitler was confined after his failed Beer Hall putsch, and from which he dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. After the war, the Allies held Nazi POWs there prior to trial.
Query: To whom will Trump dictate his "MAGA, A Story of Defeat and Triumph," William Barr?
I don't think they work with the literary memoir. But: beware of the SS-Flynn.
Mr. Chase:
You couldn’t get through two sentences before you distorted what I said. On that distortion hangs everything else in your screed. Freedom, for your information, is typically defined as the absence of of despotism, eg, domination, subjugation, repression of the human beings. It wasn’t until today that I have seen freedom transformed into anarchism so as to defend despotism.
That said, nothing in the subsequent verbiage is untainted by your distortion, a kind of fruit of the poisonous tree situation.
Thank you for sharing, and have a pleasant evening.
At the end of the day, the people of January 6th no longer matter at all. They have consciously or unconsciously, motivated or unmotivated, planned or unplanned, put themselves in a position of maximum instrumentalization. What the march on Rome was for Mussolini and Hitler's attempted coup in Munich in 1923 for Nazi propaganda could be January 6th on Capitol Hill for Trumpism. Sentences from him have already been distributed in this sense on Twitter. There he spoke of a day that would be remembered forever.
As if there was a logic of the moment that put the "right" words into the mouth of the poor cheated in Palm Beach. Or does someone seriously believe that Trump is familiar with names like the Bastille or the Champ du Mars. I guess Stephen Bannon may have been annoyed at that moment that he missed the revolutionary Kairos. But who knows, maybe they are secretly talking on the phone.
Well Prof. Mulvaney, Ph.D.,
There is a first for everything. This does not mean that it is erroneous.
Your definition of freedom is “typically defined as the absence of of despotism, eg, domination, subjugation, repression of the human beings,” i.e., the absence of any superintending authority. This equates to the absence of government, which is the definition of political anarchism. Therefore, your definition of “freedom” equates to “political anarchism,” which in turn, as I argued in my comment, results ultimately in the domination of the least moral over the more moral. Why? Because in deciding who should share in this freedom, you cannot be selective. Everyone is entitled to it = there can be no litmus test for who does, and who does not, deserve this freedom. All are entitled to it, both the moral and the immoral – who can, or has the right to, distinguish between them? The proponents of total freedom for everyone must, in order to keep true to their philosophy, oppose the creation of any organizational body which will govern over them. The least moral who must also be allowed to partake in this total freedom, on the other hand, will in fact organize into some form of government, be it tribalism, despotism, or whatever, and by virtue of their willingness to organize will easily dominate those adherents of total freedom who are unwilling to organize in order to oppose them. Therefore, total freedom naturally entails political anarchism, which ultimately leads to the least moral endorsing despotism, which in the absence of opposition by the more moral who are adverse to government, results in the domination of despotism over the adherents of total freedom.
In sum, you cannot have it both ways – either total freedom and the ultimate domination by despotism of the least moral; or the absence of total freedom and the adoption of a form of government that places restraints on total freedom, in order to resist despotism.
Mr. Chase -- Is the adoption of government which places restraints ... is that not in fact: the banding together of those who fear the banding together of the least-moral; or at any rate the banding together of those who fear the state of anarchy more than they do the burden of such restraint and the attendant risk maybe of despotism? Hobbes certainly meant what he said, when he said, not to mince words, take the bitter of despotism, at least it's a lesser poison than anarchy. Schopenhauer's epigram is closer to our time and to our mode of expression (it's hard for us to think like an Elizabethan). From what I can tell, incidentally, Hobbes was a friendlier chap than Sch. or what amounts to the same thing, he had more friends; I believe he was an avid tennis player in his late 70s!
Anonymous,
I agree with you. Any banding together requires organization and the formation of some form of government, which extinguishes the total freedom which those like Prof. Mulvaney believe will be an idyllic state of affairs. They fail to take into account that there are immoral people who are willing to take advantage of that freedom to dominate those who are more moral. This either results in despotism of the less moral over the more moral, or forces the more moral to surrender their idyllic freedom in order to form a government in order to survive against the less moral. It is, as Hobbes asserted, a war of all against all. And to reject this basic premise of human nature is to ignore reality.
OFF TOPIC:
News stories about the Supreme Court’s recent decisions regarding elections (primarily, the point that state legislatures alone make the rules regarding federal elections in their state, and that state courts may not intervene) are a reminder of the importance of state elections. Republicans control a majority of state governments and can be expected to do all they can to limit voting rights wherever they can. If they can’t win with the popular vote, then they’ll limit that vote.
Two states have legislative elections this year, New Jersey and Virginia. Democrats are solidly in charge in New Jersey, but Virginia’s Democratic majority is much less: 21 to 18, with one vacancy in the Senate, and 55-45 in the House. The governerships are also at stake.
For those who are able to do so, I recommend a contribution to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). They’re the counterparts of the House and Senate campaign committees, and support the party in state elections. This is where much goes on out of the spotlight—from election laws to gun laws to abortion restrictions to prayer and the bible in schools and more.
Prof Wolff, re: Wearing camouflage in the city. (I know this response to your comment is a few days late, but mention of wearing camouflage has recurred.)
The purpose of wearing camouflage gear in urban settings and to political rallies makes perfect sense for those individuals wanting to immediately identify themselves politically. It identifies them as sympathetic to guns, hunting, and the military and completely indifferent to the esthetic and social values of the left, which are typically associated with urban settings. The incongruity of camouflage in the city makes it a perfect signaling device.
Philosophical Waiter, AKA Tim Badonsky
(posting "anonymously" because I'm on a different computer.)
Mr. Chase,
Thank you for your comments. By the way, having taken another shot at trying to discredit philosophical anarchism, why not work in your ‘critique’ of Prof. Marcuse. Wouldn’t the violence you think he advocated contribute to the dawning of the age of Total Freedom, which despite being undefined, of necessity leads to anarchy? Come to think of it, put it all together, with scholarly references, citations, etc., and submit it to a scholarly journal.
Christopher Mulvaney Ph.D.
Elegant!!
"The incongruity of camouflage in the city makes it a perfect signaling device."
It's not the camouflage per se which can be purchased anywhere for bupkis. It's the level III & IV body armor w/ ballistic plates that makes one wonder. Spending up to a grand or so on cosplay does raise questions.
Prof. Mulvaney, Ph.D.,
I have no idea what you think you are accomplishing with your non sequiturs and interjection of Herbert Marcuse. Prof. Marcuse asserted that in order to overturn the current social order it would probably require violent resistance (although he tried to disclaim this assertion later in the interview you are referring to). The social order in reference is extremely well organized and could not be overcome by some rag tag group of protesters (witness the events of Jan. 6, 2021 in the U.S. Capitol and its aftermath). In order to launch any effective violent effort to overcome the social order, the insurrectionists would have to themselves be well organized, i.e., they would have to be willing to subordinate their individual freedom to some superintending control to have any hope of upending the current social order. In doing so, however, they would be acting in direct contravention of the philosophy of political anarchism, i.e., total personal autonomy/freedom, which rejects the proposition that any such superintending authority has the moral right to demand the subordination of the political anarchist to such authority. Indeed, Prof. Wolff, in his essay “In Defense of Anarchism,” stated (pp. 10-11):
“The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled. It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority of the state [i.e., any organization, however it is denominated, which purports to have the right to assert authority over others]. Insofar as a man fulfills his obligation to make himself the author of his decisions, he will resist the state’s claim [again, insert here any organization] claim to have authority over him. That is to say, he will deny that he has a duty to obey the laws of the state simply because they are the laws. In that sense, it would seem that anarchism is the only political doctrine consistent with the virtue of autonomy.
* * *
“The dilemma which we have posed can be succinctly expressed in terms of the concept of a de jure state. If all men have a continuing obligation to achieve the highest degree of autonomy possible, then there would appear to no state [insert here, “any organization”] whose subjects have a moral obligation to obey its commands. Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous, and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man.” (Underscoring, in the form of italics, in the original.)
Professor Wolff proceeds to offer as a possible solution to this dilemma unanimous direct democracy, where its adherents always reach unanimous consensus. Prof. Wolff acknowledges that such unanimous consensus over any pragmatic period of time is unlikely to occur. “Since by the rule of unanimity a single negative vote defeats any motion, the slightest disagreement over significant questions will bring the operations of the society to a halt.” (p. 13) Yet, he elaborates (p. 14), “Since unanimous democracy can exist only under such limited conditions, it might be thought that there is very little point in discussing it at all. For two reasons, however, unanimous direct democracy has great theoretical importance.” (Emphasis added.)
However, theoretical significance does not suffice to overcome real life situations, such as overturning a social order which some find despotic and objectionable. Hence, my conclusion that to overcome one despotism it can only be accomplished by opposing it with another form of despotism. The alternative is adherence to political anarchism which extols maximum autonomy, and which, without being organized, cannot possibly hope to overcome the despotism it wishes to overthrow. This is pretty simple and straightforward, and does not need a peer reviewed scholarly article to validate or legitimize it.
For some reason which I do not understand, my added emphases by inserting underscoring do not show up upon transcription to the comment section.
S. Wallerstein,
You are too kind.
Professor Wolff says that he had ‘the very powerful sense that this was a bunch of people playing at being soldiers’. True, perhaps. But aren't actual soldiers, people who have been educated into their roles, by successive acts of role-playing? You become a combat ready soldier by playing at being soldiers A LOT. Indeed, I would suggest that there isn't much difference between being a soldier and playing at being a soldier, until actual violence ensues, and maybe not even then. Without the persistent role-playing people could not fulfil their violent roles. Thus it is with actual armies, and thus it is with terrorist militias (which can, given time, morph into actual armies, as with Daesh).
On a related issue . Much has been made of the point that the camouflage gear that was originally designed to make you less visible in the bush, tends to make you stand out in an urban environment. But that does not mean that tit is silly to wear it when engaged in an urban insurrection. For the point of the camouflage gear is not to make you inconspicuous but to make you stand out and to declare very publicly to the world at large that you are some kind of soldier. This is not very different from the self presentations or such people as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Generally speaking they don't wear their dress uniforms to work or on public occasions. They tend to wear combat fatigues with a camouflage pattern. The point is not to make themselves inconspicuous, but to make themselves conspicuous as working soldiers (as opposed to a set of brass hats out of touch with the real world). It is visibility not invisibility that is the object of the exercise, the role of the camouflage gear having been completely reversed.
The soldiers of the Gododin -- maybe whom the Romans called the Votadini -- feasted and then fought, wearing nothing but their ceremonial golden collars, at Catterick the Anglian Northumbrians; who slew all of the but, so the story goes, the one who escaped with his life, shamefully, but who lived to tell the tale.
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